ELI5: Explain Like I'm 5

Chinese emperors family tree

Alright kiddo, so a family tree is like a big map that shows how people in a family are related to each other. And in China, a long long time ago, they had emperors who were like kings of the country.

Now, imagine that the emperor was at the very top of the family tree. They would have kids, who would be their sons and daughters. These kids would then have kids of their own, who would be the emperor's grandchildren. And these grandkids would also have kids, who would be the emperor's great-grandchildren.

This family tree would go on and on, with new generations being added to it over time. And it would show how all the different emperors were related to each other.

But here's the tricky part - in China, they didn't always follow the same rules that we do in the West when it comes to family trees. For example, sometimes they would skip over a generation and go straight to the next one, if the person in between wasn't considered important enough.

So it can be a bit confusing to follow the Chinese emperors family tree, but it's still really interesting to see how all the different emperors were connected to each other over hundreds of years!